Congress trounces BJP in Rajasthan bypolls

After facing back to back defeats, the Congress has finally something to cheer about as it wrestled the Mandalgarh Assembly as well as the Ajmer and Alwar Lok Sabha seats from the ruling BJP in Rajasthan by huge margins.

The voting for all three seats was held on January 29, 2018.

Likewise, Congress defeated BJP from Mandalgarh Assembly seat with a margin of 12,976 votes and got a massive win in Alwar by defeating BJP by 1,97,707 votes.

Yashwant Deshmukh, the founder of the polling agency, C-Voter, has predicted that the Congress would win 140 seats in the upcoming polls, leaving the BJP with a mere 53.

Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Randeep Surjewala also congratulated the party leaders and people of the desert state for the stupendous victory of Congress. "People of Rajasthan have given their stamp on four years of Modi government and the budget presented by it". Proud of each and every one of you.

Ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre, the social fabric of Rajasthan has seen a violent change. Chief minister Raje later tweeted, "We have worked tirelessly over the years, with the people of Rajasthan as our centre of attention and shall work harder, with renewed fervour and dedication, taking our lovely state to new heights". Unemployment is hurting the youth.

Like the BJP, there is internal factionalism in Congress too, with Ashok Gehlot harbouring ambitions of becoming the CM again.

By noon, Congress started leading in all three seats. Compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP's vote share has fallen by 20% while the Congress' has increased by 24%. BJP candidates Ram Swaroop Lamba and Jaswant Yadav were trailing in the Ajmer and Alwar seats respectively at the time of filing this report.

The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered a major blow to its aspirations of putting up a good showing once again in Rajasthan in the next assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Congress - 108161, BJP- 85510. A Congress rebel polled 23% of the votes. In Alwar- Congress 172535 BJP 133289. Imagine a scenario if those votes had also swung in favour of Congress.

The BJP lost Ajmer North by 6,975 votes, Ajmer South by 13,070 votes. Yadav had garnered 1,63,489 votes. Sunil Singh of TMC has got 77983 votes. "The process of the revival of the Congress has begun".